Raul (below text which says "Recorded Last Night"): "We now have several years experience with the O$I problem. By now we should know what's effective and what's not. So far, the only 2 things that have been effective are to 1) buy a doorcloser, and 2) making those causing us pain believe that a significant share of that pain will eventually become their own... O$I has been deliberately interfering with O$ relationships since it's very founding, and this is unacceptable.

Whenever a new enemy arrises, the first question the sensible person asks themselves is if there can be a peaceful solution. One would like to believe that the members of O$I have a conscience regarding what they are doing, or that they have some "common decency" or ethics that could be appealed to. Sadly, this is not the case, as if they did, the conflict would have been resolved a very long time ago. All of this has been tried and can be added to the pile of things that simply don't work.

If you do nothing at all, they consider the problem solved. They are so selfish that as long as the pain is not theirs, that your being in pain isn't considered problematic. So that's alternate scenario #1. If you do nothing, they will just forget all about you and our troubles continue. Except of course when they see you talking to anyone O$, in which case Amanda will promptly intervene and we will each time be left with nothing.

If you try to be nice to them, it then becomes a supply and demand problem. Each of them has infinite supplies of people willing to give them anything we have and if they believe even the tiniest lies from Amanda, are conned into believing that "mining" here just isn't worth the "risks" they have been fooled into being worried about. The risks of dealing with us are certainly no worse than the risks of dealing with Alice, but since Alice is an erika supporter, erika and Amanda are not trying to inflate artificial extra perceptions of risk concerning Alice.

So sadly, that leaves very few other options on how any of this can ever be improved. Not that I like any of the options which remain, but then they created these rules, not us."

LAURA (working game controller): "As unsatisfying as it is, you want to go for the big dogs first." (she points at the screen) "... and save her for last cause it only takes like 2 shots to wax her and that may well be what you're down to by then :-D"

A big fleet of ships then leaves a recently constructed outpost in the 'a'....

They are headed straight for their enemy's homeworld...

Then suddenly a fourth of the fleet breaks off and heads in another direction...

Radio:

"There goes our safety in numbers"

"I envy you. Our target will be easily destroyed, but yours is where my _anger is_"

"Hold your horses there destroyer. We don't even have our orders to attack yet"

"But _WE DO_, and WE WILL!"

Suddenly a large annoying a1 ship starts giving the smaller group a hard time. Someone presses a button labeled "a1" and a tiny rocket sizzles away, permeates their shields an the pesky a1 goes up in a massive explosion...

"When we heard the L.......ne people were having problems with the a2, we immediately wanted to know how our technology might help. This is why Culc..ne Corporation has donated a sizable complement to their military. At C...caine, we believe the best testimonial is a solved problem. Watch how our machines perform, then call our sales department at ..."

Raul is wearing a shirt which says "It was a creepyobj.ctemException :-D"

June: "There have been a lot of those Lately :-D"

Darlene: "So how did he handle it?"

LAURA: "He RETHREW IT. It wasn't very aerodynamic :-D" (Laughter)

Darlene: "No I mean, God, how does Raul do it? Are you nervous? With damn near every call you make determining what happens with that situation in the a?"

Raul: "In some ways you just get used to it and realize that it's not our fault that the a just simply sucks"

Raul: "X% of the time you're going to make a bad call, but since the situation there is completely irrational anyway, I doubt it really matters all that much anyway. The a is full of usecases where you can do all the right things and still finish last. And vice versa... Look at how Alice has friends just cause people are afraid of her... A lot of the time, what the right call in a situation this irrational is is a _dicethrow_. This time I was pretty sure I acted justifiably. First they were asked to disclose their affiliations and didn't. We _tolerated_ that as long as they behaved themself... Then there was just their general creepy use of the Internet... And how they then got inexplicably quiet, and then when they started playing dumb games, I was like _You're outtahere_"

Darlene: "I'm not an expert but I thought there were damned few situations where you can break off communications with most of them"

LAURA: "He's still within the rules. If any of them want to find us, they all know how... and they'd better hurry up and start doing this too"

June: "The only people blocked universally are erika and any of the little autonomatons whose 'soul' LOL it completely pwns, such as Amanda"